Eric Fillion
Events
BIO
Eric Fillion (PhD History) is director of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) and assistant professor at the School of Languages and Literatures (SOLAL – French and Francophone Studies).
His ongoing work on the social and symbolic importance of music—within countercultures and in international/intercultural relations—builds on the experience he has acquired as a musician. It also informs his current research on the postwar cultural public sphere in Canada, Quebec, and the Francophone world. His two main projects examine the emergence of the music festival phenomenon and the entangled sonic histories of diasporic social movements, with a focus on both intermediality and improvisation. Eric Fillion is the founder of the Tenzier archival record label and co-editor of the journal Critical Studies in Improvisation.
The author of two books, JAZZ LIBRE et la révolution québécoise: musique-action, 1967-1975 and Distant Stage: Quebec, Brazil, and the Making of Canada’s Cultural Diplomacy, he is also the co-editor, with Sean Mills and Désirée Rochat, of Statesman of the Piano: Jazz, Race, and History in the Life of Lou Hooper. Co-edited with Ajay Heble and forthcoming in the fall of 2026, his next book is titled Ripple Effects: The Work That Music Festivals Do in the World